Facebook Revamps the News Feed Section: A Deliberate Rollout or Another Bug?

I am not sure whether it’s a deliberate release by Facebook or just came to me as a bug but I have noticed major changes in the functionality and the UI of “News Feed” section. At this point of time, I am also not sure whether this is a world-wide release or roll-out will be in phases for millions of users as traditional process of Facebook. However, I must pat Facebook for making cool “News Feed” section pretty impressive, simple and attractive.

The new News Feed section has been divided into three frames. The overall achievement from this roll out seems to draw more attention towards news’ by using ‘intelligent’ scrolling and framing methods.

Unlike “Profile” section, there are no more sponsored ads or suggestions on right panel now. Going further, the right panel has been complete dedicated to “latest News Trends” titled as “Happening Now” which showcases the most active and responsive news’/updates of your network. Intelligently, the scrolling of this section has been isolated than other part of the page scrolling to keep users focused on latest news.

On the similar ground, the left panel remains complete unmovable, irrespective of News section or overall page scrolling. Unlike “Happening Now” section, this panel don’t have its own scrolling section which stretches as per the information by its own.

Company has linked the overall page scroll directly with the middle section which holds latest news and updates.

I found such changes much valuable and important as with the growing trend of news share and blogging, people were losing pace with the information flow on “News feed” section.The fish-out of all bolt-ons from this section will allow people to stay focused on latest trend and information.

To make the trending – rather “Happening Now” – section more effective and accessible, Facebook has opted the pop up method. You click on any news or update from respective section and the complete sequential thread will display in a pop up which would allow to have complete coverage of the story in a glance. You can like, update, play video and perform rest all set of activities related to such news/update in that pop-up window – without ditching current “News Feed” page.

In a similar move, last week Facebook silently rolled out a controversial “Auto Face Recognition & Tagging” feature which has been criticized by many people and online security analysts.

Update 1: As expected, sponsored ad section is back on the News Feed section, just above the “Happening Now”. It’s true no one wants to lose a penny !!

Update 2: Facebook has clarified on its new feature, giving an insight into what the “Now Happening” section will deliver:

“We are currently testing a feature within News Feed that gives people the ability to see what their friends are commenting on and “liking”, as these actions are being taken on Facebook.

This test includes a small percentage of Facebook users, just a fraction of a percent. In the coming weeks, as we learn more from this test, we’ll keep making improvements and may expand it to more people.”

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Lydoevans

HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Anonymous

This sucks and I hate it. And I can’t get rid of this crap either

Jamie Bond

In regards to this new Testing Facebook, can you tell me please, if there will be an option… like with the original Facebook newsfeed, to filter posts like we could before. That is the biggest thing I really miss and really disappointed that it has gone. I’m sure you know what I’m referring to.. with the option to choose from ‘Most Recent’ , Game such as Yoville posts, ‘Family’, etc etc… because at this stage, I have to scroll right through the whole day to see statuses or posts that I am interested in. Whereas with the original format… I could easily filter out what I wanted to see briefly to catch up.

This new way, is very time consuming.. and I do miss so many posts, statuses from my family & friends… in fact, sometimes I wonder if they think I am being rude, or otherwise because I haven’t commented… or replied, which is because I never saw their post.

This new scrolling feed section is completely redundant! It’s an exact duplicate of what is already going on in the live feed (except now the main feed has stopped live scrolling & I have to constantly refresh to see what is going on)… and really, maybe I don’t want my friends to know what games I am playing or when/how often I am playing them or what I am liking… GIVE ME SOME PRIVACY OPTIONS!!!! If FB is going to make me a test dummy, at least let me somehow respond somewhere with my feedback of what I think about it or what problems I’m encountering, isn’t that what being a “test user” is all about? Either allow me a way to give feedback or take me off the TEST list! OMG I am so hating Facebook right now! Oh & the chat sucks too, 22 people are available to chat but you are only going to show me 6 of the ones online & 10 of those who are not (just because I recently interacted with them) so now I have to “search” for the rest of the available by going one by one through the 320 friends I have???? GARBAGE!!! Ask “Myspace Tom” what happens when something better comes along… Google+ you are looking mighty tempting right about now, FB you are #losing

Kristina Kitzmiller Seitz

This new scrolling feed section is completely redundant! It’s an exact duplicate of what is already going on in the live feed (except now the main feed has stopped live scrolling & I have to constantly refresh to see what is going on)… and really, maybe I don’t want my friends to know what games I am playing or when/how often I am playing them or what I am liking… GIVE ME SOME PRIVACY OPTIONS!!!! If FB is going to make me a test dummy, at least let me somehow respond somewhere with my feedback of what I think about it or what problems I’m encountering, isn’t that what being a “test user” is all about? Either allow me a way to give feedback or take me off the TEST list! OMG I am so hating Facebook right now! Oh & the chat sucks too, 22 people are available to chat but you are only going to show me 6 of the ones online & 10 of those who are not (just because I recently interacted with them) so now I have to “search” for the rest of the available by going one by one through the 320 friends I have???? GARBAGE!!! Ask “Myspace Tom” what happens when something better comes along… Google+ you are looking mighty tempting right about now, FB you are #losing

Anonymous

I have this and I HATE it. I don’t know if HATE is strong enough of a word. It’s awful.

Gagarwal1612

HI guys ,

i would really appreciate if somebody could let me know how to revert to old new feed settings ….i am so irritated with this so called ” happening now ” panel and new news feed change ….even i am not able to locate people who are online s after this upgrade nothing shows up in left panel where you used to get friends pic who used to be online ..

Please help to get rid of this new setting

sweettexaslady64

Well i guess im one of the hated to be one of the test dummies I dont like it at all and would love to have the back..Its strange my son and I both had our pages changed he doesnt like it either please CHANGE IT BACK

I am one of the lab rats that has the misfortune to be “testing” this new format. Today by noon the most recent news feed I had was 15 hours old. Now I know that a least one person from my friends list has said something a little more recent that. This is a failure! Yet FB continues to push this on us. Sending them feed back only gets you a form auto email response. The voice of the people mean very little to the FB clowns. They will push this on us regardless what we want.

On the up side I have started reading more books, at least I know they won’t change mid chapter to some weird format or different language

Plus the photo that FB is providing is totally incorrect. There are not thumbnail pictures on the left of your friend online and at the top there is no Top News/Recent button. FB is attempting to pretty sell a failed product.

I am one of the lab rats that has the misfortune to be “testing” this new format. Today by noon the most recent news feed I had was 15 hours old. Now I know that a least one person from my friends list has said something a little more recent that. This is a failure! Yet FB continues to push this on us. Sending them feed back only gets you a form auto email response. The voice of the people mean very little to the FB clowns. They will push this on us regardless what we want.

On the up side I have started reading more books, at least I know they won’t change mid chapter to some weird format or different language

Plus the photo that FB is providing is totally incorrect. There are not thumbnail pictures on the left of your friend online and at the top there is no Top News/Recent button. FB is attempting to pretty sell a failed product.

Actually the “TEST DUMMY” tag I have received I do not appreciate! It seems that you are the lone person (Are you part of this test?) who appears to like the NEW Facebook. I have heard the TEST is 1,000 also 2,000. At 1,000 from the forums I’ve participated in it appears to be 99+% DIS-satisfaction! At this point it appears that Facebook (although at this point I much prefer to call FAKEBOOK) has overstepped ALL boundaries of privacy and informed consent. As to an explanation I read this morning of their methods for roll outs and testing this just becomes a “Key stroke” test method.. So therefore it is just passed along the “TEST DUMMY” path until the get the results they want without actually having any knowledge verbal of how the people they are testing feel or react to their tests. To me this is just malicious attempt to gather personal information to pass on to Facebook advertisers about our interests, our personal status, living arrangements, ad on to infinity. Shutter Buggy summed it up very well. It is (in my opinion) a study in human frustration! And for whose gain?

Tman1949

Very well said

Lisa ‘ebby’ Paige

I’m glad you like it.

I don’t (like it that is) and its apparent that many MANY others don’t as well.

My apologies since you (DazeInfo) aren’t, as you say, responsible for the latest FB initiative. Though you are obviously responsible for giving those of us that are not happy with and very much against said initiative, a forum from which to vent. Well another forum, we do have our FB group “Happening Now” Haters. At the end of the day you are not responsible for the actions of FB.

You will of course understand if some of the ire we feel falls your way and stains your shoes and your doorstep. Your endorsement of the rollout and your seeming defense of FB on admittedly your own website is quite frustrating to some of us. Especially when coupled with FB’s wholehearted behavior to dare i say willfully ignore those of us that do not like nor want these changes forced on us without the benefit of asking first. We’ve emailed, we’ve posted, we grow more and more frustrated and yes angry.

So please excuse me if i came across as blaming YOU for the latest failings of FB. At first glance i did wonder how much FB was paying this website to give them the thumbs up. But really does that even matter? Up until this point I was quite happy with FB and spoke well of it, even to those that despised it for being what it is. And i never received a dime nor expected to.

This is more than disliking change though. This is being made to take our medicine, because FB knows best. How about a little collaboration? If we so-called lucky ones are indeed a Test Group, far better had FB communicated that idea prior to the mass hijacking of our pages. Perhaps then we could have given them feedback on what works and what doesn’t work with this latest change. We could have done so without anger, attitude or hysterics…maybe even happily and gladly assisted them in their efforts to bring us the best product to-date.

I will close with this; if you can in any way bring our voices to the FB decision makers let them know they did not become the giant of social networking alone…the very term “social networking” can be defined as a group effort and endeavor, something done to socially bring us/everyone into network TOGETHER.. Listening to the people they serve and continuing to build loyalty from that foundation can create a system that can have far reaching impact on the entire world in a way not yet experienced.

LP

Jennifer

Oh, its not just the addition of the Happening Now feed that is horrible, they have changed or taken away many features that I rely on. Your picture above shows the Top News & Most Recent link at the top of the Home Page-NOT this is gone. The feed is a mess. You don’t know what you are going to see, half way done the page in very small letters you will find the Most Recent header and they start from there. You CANNOT sort your friend’s list that you have created on the feed anymore. So this feature that FB created is mute. I have over 200 friends in over 10 categories and now cannot see there posts by using the filter. Oh and Events and Birthdays are harder to find and harder to use. Chat-GONE, hope you didn’t like that feature! If you’re a FB gamer the Game Request page that has a feed of it’s own for filtering your games is all wrong and does not filter correctly. Need I go on???? And yes, you can view what everyone is posting, clicking on, liking, etc on the Happening Now feed. And did you know ANYONE can view your posts. I can go on this feed, view a friends comment they posted on one of their friends that is not my friend and POST ON THEIR WALL. Even if they have blocked privacy features. Yay Facebook developers you’ve done a great one this time! Kudos! Oh and if you change to this new feature you will be losing hundreds if not thousands of dollars in game royalties because I will quit my games and stop sending money to them. Bet that will make everyone happy!

Ann Robins

I too have got this horrible scrolling at the right hand side how do u get rid pf it, it is awful

Shawn DeVito

Dazeinfo,

I think we’re all ‘confused’ because each of your responses to negative comments seem to try to convince us that we should accept and love this new feature. Thank you for your attempt to reach the Facebook UX team. We do hope they take each and every user’s experience and use it to make their final decision.

First of all I would like to address your confusion. We are not sure why many of the people (including ones who have posted their grievance about the new UI of Facebook’s News feed) think that we as Dazeinfo are responsible for this new feature roll out ? Do you think we have any “say” to Mark or “Facebook” ? No. It was just a situation that we were the first who exposed the new UI and made people aware about this.

You, like many others, have been chosen by Facebook team for the new roll out. And trust, whether you like or not, Dazeinfo is not responsible for such initiative. However, I am sure that if there is a large community against such new roll out, Facebook would like to give second thought about this.

From our side, we are doing our level best to make your voice reach to Facebook UX team and now its upto them to make any final decision.

On our personal experience and take, we found this new feature quite helpful and that’s our own prospective.

Hope you understand !!

Shutter Buggy

I would like to respond to some points here:

1 “I found such changes much valuable and important as with the growing trend of news share and blogging, people were losing pace with the information flow on “News feed” section.The fish-out of all bolt-ons from this section will allow people to stay focused on latest trend and information.”

Who was losing pace? It certainly was not me, I know it wasn’t my friends. I think what he meant was ” No one was using the News Feed and we are married to it so we found a way to force users into reading it”

2 “The new News Feed section has been divided into three frames. The overall achievement from this roll out seems to draw more attention towards news’ by using ‘intelligent’ scrolling and framing methods.”

Three frames filled with the same old info? Yes, I can see how intelligent it is to slam the same useless info in users’ faces over and over. What good does it do to keep seeing the same old news from three days ago? Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep the most recent news at the top? I thought the notifications were there to keep us up to date on things we actually commented on, you can display things to me I didn’t comment on over and over again, I am still not interested.

3 “We are currently testing a feature within News Feed that gives people the ability to see what their friends are commenting on and “liking”, as these actions are being taken on Facebook.”

What happened to our privacy? I am sure my friends’ friends do not appreciate that I can see their “private” statuses and I know I sure don’t like the idea that strangers can now see mine.

If Facebook is more concerned with doing what they want, than continuing to make their users happy and satisfied, I don’t see much future for them. I can’t believe they are seeing the testers reactions and just ignoring it. As if everyone is only complaining because they hate change. This is beyond a few people getting their feathers ruffle over some minor changes.

It is a majority of the people angry and confused because seemingly over night FB went from an organized valuable tool for communicating to a nightmare of a mess with no rhyme or reason. It is time to admit you have failed big time and retreat back to the drawing room.

Lisa ‘ebby’ Paige

Oh no you didn’t say we were the “lucky” chosen ones!

Lucky would be finding out all my bills will be paid for life by a philanthropic kind soul that wishes to remain anonymous.

Lucky would be hitting Lotto AND Powerball on the same weekend that I’m on vacation..

Lucky would be finding a real pot of gold under a rainbow and no nasty Leprechaun to trick, battle or slay.

Waking up to the abomination that is now my FB page, I’m left to wonder “who did i royally piss off?”

After reading this article and the “let’s put a good spin on this” comments by whoever you are that thinks this is a good thing, might i cordially invite you to: Stuff A Sock In It!

Geez Louise…if I had this many people complaining about a product I was dishing out I’d do all i could to rectify the situation before I found myself being dragged outta my own Palatial Estate, tarred, feathered and beaten with foam F’s.

The new version SUCKS and I’ve yet to hear anyone outside of yourself Mr. or Ms DazeInfo person say anything good about it. How’s THAT for a Focus Group Response?

Ok, so the last 4 days of being one of the “lucky” chosen few to have my FB page tested has been miserable. I absolutely hate it. Then, this morning they changed it back to my old page. Thank goodness!!! OR SO I THOUGHT, just logged on again and the annoying mini feed is back and the main news feed is a jumbled up mess!!!! I do not wish to be part of the test group and have not found anyone saying anything good about this new look. Please just leave well enough alone and please put my FB page back the way it was!!!

Protectkidz

this is how myspace went down. too many unnecessary changes. this “new feature” of FB’s is the worst yet.

Beth Pecoraro

I seem to be stuck in some sort of no man’s land between the old style and this “improved” version. At this point I’d be happy if Facebook would just pick one and go with it.

Paul von born

I am also one of the unlucky that got this. Right side panel is totally pointless, who cares if a friend likes something someone you don’t know wrote or posted? I have a lot of friends, business contacts and game friends since many of the games you provide on FB requires a big crowd to advance. This does not mean that I’m interested in their everyday life. I want to be able to follow and interact with a specific group of people, people I consider my real friends. Before I could do this by clicking most resent and then filter the news by friend lists, This is gone now and my biggest complaint. If you log on to FB after, say, eight hours the most reseent option was excellent, I could just scroll down to my last logon time and see what had happened since then. Now there is no way I can follow up on anything.

It’s funny, since I have been defending FB to Google+ and said that you could create circles in FB as well, but they where called friend lists. Now that option is gone. Maybe it’s time for me to leave as well?

I understand your concerns and pain points. However, every software and new features always have many advantages and few downsides and people should compensate this in the presence of new ones.

I think, the right hand side bar has been very useful for many who want to tap the most active discussion, topic and post. This way you will always be updated about the activities related to important information.

Events, B’day reminders have been shifted on your profile page. I don’t think its going to be a daunting task for anyone making 2 clicks to reach all those features instead of one.

Jamie Bond

Please change it back… I can’t stand it… it doesn’t fit in with my social activities on Facebook.. & I think we should be given the right to choose.

Let alone the privacy of ‘no privacy’ for anyone.. we see every damn comment all our friends make to friends that aren’t even ours…

Oh, yeah… where are my events that are coming up… gosh.. not a happy chappy..

Jamie Bond

Please change it back… I can’t stand it… it doesn’t fit in with my social activities on Facebook.. & I think we should be given the right to choose.

Let alone the privacy of ‘no privacy’ for anyone.. we see every damn comment all our friends make to friends that aren’t even ours…

Oh, yeah… where are my events that are coming up… gosh.. not a happy chappy..

SCRAGS64

I think it is an awful feature. If you play games such as Farmville it is awful I hav not been able to get any special gifts over the last three weeks as by the time I have found the feed they have gone! I don’t care who is talking to whom, only about my friends and what they are doing. Luckily mine has gone back to normal and I DO NOT WANT IT CHANGING AGAIN

Stephen Ryder

I have, or should i say had this new Happening Now feature and i was very annoyed i wasnt asked to take part, there is a breach of privacy, and can no see any point in trying to make facebook more like twitter, if i wanted twitter i would have downloaded twitter. Please take the time to have a look at the following group of people who are also not happy and read some of their thoughts.. Regards Stephen Ryder…… http://www.facebook.com/DHMSuzyQAngel#!/home.php?sk=group_219417451413093&ap=1

Shawn DeVito

Dazeinfo,

I’ve been part of the test group for the new UI. I won’t go into everything wrong with it. You’ve an idea based on the comments posted here. In one response you state: “But for that all users need to react in numbers to showcase strong opposition.”

I’d like to point you to one of the, I’m sure quite a few, Facebook groups started because of the frustration of this rollout/test. If you’re looking for feedback, please start here.

Seems that roll out of the new UI has been started to users now. Its something which has been decided by Facebok and I think it also has many advantages in terms of usability. You will stay attentive and updated with the latest News & feeds. Also the right hand side panel will show you the recent activity and details of that without actually leaving your home page.

Ericzon_agustin

i’m also one of them and i hate it too..so can you back my old news feed?

Angeladageford

It wasn’t very hard and I have hundreds of friends. In less the 12 hours I have almost all back, just had a common friend do some friend suggestions. I understand it wouldn’t be for everyone but admittingly it is a viable option and worked for me. Unlike what you get with facebook people do deserve to hear a different options

That doesn’t seem to be a solution for many. t’s not possible to deactivate your account if you have hundreds of friends and well connect network. As, we have mentioned earlier, based on users comment Fb may roll bac few sections. But for that all users need to react in numbers to showcase strong opposition.

I am sorry. This is default setting and roll out by Facebook. However, Facebook may be monitoring this section closely and based on all users feedback and comments may roll back the features which are not wellcomed by users.

Angeladageford

Found a way around it alright. Deactivated my original account and just created a new one, the new page does not have it!!! Presto problem solved. And yes I told this directly to facebook when I deactivated so don’t want to hear about their policy for this.

well apparently im one of the lucky ones and now i have to see it. i HATE it. its pointless.why do i care what one of my friend said to someone im not friend with? judging from my own experience and what others are saying.this “trial” needs to end real soon. nobody likes it. and then your stuck with it, no way to get rid of it. next time you come up with an idea, get volunteers to “test it out”..ugh!

Anonymous

I have it and I want to get rid of it. NOW. It’s awful.

Anonymous

I have it and I want to get rid of it. NOW. It’s awful.

byron

am one of the chosen to be tested and you’r right it’s still in our profile page and it’s really annoying that i have to go to my profile page just to see any events and birth days reminders!! pls… Fb don’t run this feature bring back Fb as the old times much applicable and user friendly!!

annoyedbyfb

I am one of the selected few and I hate it! 🙁

the news feed on the right has gone now after some days (tks fb!), but it still shows me at least 10+ random “sticky” posts at the very top of the news feed that are up to 2 days old!!! and keep coming or get exchanged with other posts that are “only” 12 hours old already read posts and mixed again with some that are 30 min old. with no reasonable order whatsoever.

only if I scroll down to an almost invisible “most recent” bar I get the latest news…that’s f***ing annoying. and no fun to use fb anymore.

Dear Fred, we are afraid to inform you that these features are part of Facebook’s new roll-out of UI. Any user cant adjust/change their own UI setting of Facebook account. Probably, its time for facebook to look for Web 2.0 option here every user can design their own home page using the combination and drag-and-drop feature of various sections.

Fred

Help why have I been chosen for this wonderful new crap ,I get a scrolling feedbar when I go into any FB game app and how can I get rid of it. Fred at tx_tinkertoy@yahoo.com

Dear ifwasik45, I am afraid to inform you that this feature cant be roll backed by users. Facebook is testing the new interface and “may” plugg few important section – like you requested” back to Home page. However, pls keep in mind this is under trial mode and not the final UI version.

I do not like this AT ALL.. I miss my friends on chat pictures on the left hand side. I miss the reminders of birthdays at the top of the right hand side. I don’t care to see things I am posting AGAIN in the Happening Now section. Please return the homepage to the last version. This stinks!!!!

Lfwasik45

Is there any way to get rid of this I have tried everything I like you think it is horrendous and i want my events and birthdays corner back as well, don’t think it is fair to make a person a test with out their permission I am irate this is driving me crazy!!!!!!!

I think the new feature is horrendous, it’s telling me things I either already know or don’t care about, and furthermore it has replaced the events and birthdays corner (in other words, the features I care about most are no longer visible on the homepage)

Anonymous

The left panel may work on “Auto-stretch” technology base upon number of online friends. Happening now is not a repetation of middle section. Its like Twitter’s ‘Trending Now’. News and update in middle section are the latest ones but “Happenin now” showcases the most active ones in your network – irrespective of when they were posted.

Sgmitch77

I apparently am one of the unlucky trial subjects. the “happening now” section is nothing more than repeat of middle section news feed. The area where my photo of online friends is apparently too low on the left section to show, and since i cannot scroll down the left section, i cannot tell which friends are online. I hate this format!